Species names are the glue that connect biological databases together. If species names do not agree (e.g., due to different usage of synonyms), it may not be possible to join datasets. Existing software for resolving species names typically only allow for selection from a small number of public taxonomic databases as the taxonomic standard; however, such databases may not be ideal for a given project. We have developed a pair of R packages that enable greater flexibility in taxonomic name resolution: dwctaxon and taxastand. dwctaxon facilitates working with Darwin Core taxonomic data in R, including data validation and automated updating of changes in synonymy. taxastand matches species names to a user-specified reference database while accounting for misspellings and taxonomic syntax, then resolves synonyms to their accepted names. This combination of packages allows researchers to develop taxonomic databases customized to their needs and greater usage of existing data which otherwise could not be joined. They are freely available at https://github.com/joelnitta/dwctaxon and https://github.com/joelnitta/taxastand.